“He went to Harvard University,” my grandmother said, and her tone was strange—it was as if she were boasting to me about someone other than my own husband.
“You’re right that he went to school on the East Coast, but it was Princeton. Anyway, I guess he had the idea that he’d have accomplished more by now. He comes from a line of successful men, his grandfather and father, and I’m sure you remember his brother Ed is a congressman.” I wasn’t at all sure she remembered, though she did nod as I spoke. “But I just don’t think Charlie is meant to be a business titan or a politician. Not that I mind—I didn’t marry him assuming he would be. He’s so funny and lively, he has loads of friends, he’s a terrific father, and I just —I don’t understand why that’s not enough, why our life isn’t enough. It’s enough for me, and I don’t understand why it isn’t enough for him.”
“His ambitions exceed his talent.”
I tried not to take offense. “I don’t know if I’d go that far. He’s very smart. And maybe it’s me, it’s that he finds me boring—” It was actually painful to remember the afternoon when Charlie and I had first said we loved each other—it had been the same day he’d met my mother and grandmother and Lars—and to remember how he’d prefaced it by saying he thought he’d always find me interesting. The reason it was painful was that I wondered with increasing frequency if it had remained true. What a wonderful compliment that had been, how unexpected, how
I had felt. I wasn’t just a cute brunette to Charlie; he understood that I was a person who thought about things, who read and had opinions, even if I held them quietly, and all of these were qualities that made him value me. But did he ever wish, in retrospect, that he’d married someone more exciting, someone whose idea of a pleasant Saturday night wasn’t eating dinner with our nine-year-old daughter and then reading forty pages of Eudora Welty before bed? Even the absence of real acrimony in our marriage, maybe that was disappointing—no opportunities for shouting or slamming doors, none of the delicious ugliness of rage, no fraught sexy reunions.
My grandmother said, “Everyone is boring some of the time. The most fascinating person I ever knew was a woman named Gladys Wycomb. Did I ever introduce you to my friend Gladys?”
I nodded.
“She was the eighth woman in the state of Wisconsin to earn her medical degree, truly a brilliant gal. But I’d go to visit her, and sure enough, within a few days, we’d both be reading a book at the dinner table. It didn’t bother me a whit. What greater happiness is there than the privilege of being bored together?”
“I agree, but I’m not sure that Charlie would.”
“Does he know you have doubts about him?”
“It’s not me doubting him, it’s him having doubts about his job and the path he’s taken in life, which—” I broke off. Wasn’t I lying, however inadvertently? It
me doubting him. I glanced at the floor, which was covered in white linoleum tiles. When I looked up again, I said, “I know you were impressed with Charlie when you first met, but are you still?” What was I doing asking this of my drugged grandmother, as if she were some sort of medium of marital wisdom? Or was I bold enough only because she was drugged? Even with Jadey, I was not quite this frank.
“I was impressed by him because I could tell he adored you, and you deserve to be adored,” my grandmother said. “Frankly, what you’re describing sounds like much ado about nothing. Go home, put on a pretty dress, some heels, and some lipstick, flirt with him, flatter him, and never forget how insecure men are. It’s because they take themselves far too seriously.”
In this moment, her instructions felt like a lifeline—so simple, so easily executed. What an immense relief to have someone tell me what to do! Then she said, “Get me some water, will you? They’ve been feeding me spicy chicken, and I don’t care for the taste of it.”
“Your cup is right here.” I helped her sip again, and when she’d finished, I held up the book I’d brought in my bag. “I have your copy of
Would you like me to read from it?”
“That would be lovely.”
“From the section where she and Vronsky meet, or from the beginning?”
“When they meet.”
As I opened the book, I said, “I hope I haven’t made you think badly of Charlie. I’m sure you’re right that I’m blowing things out of proportion.”
She had already closed her eyes, and she shook her head. “Chapter Eighteen,” I began, and I cleared my throat. “ ‘Vronsky followed the guard to the carriage, and had to stop at the entrance of the compartment to let a lady pass . . . ’ ” When my mother arrived a few minutes later with the balloon, my grandmother had fallen back to sleep.
ON MY RETURN
to Milwaukee, I stopped at a gas station. I’d already paid and was replacing the gas nozzle in the pump when a man’s voice said, “Alice, what a coincidence.”
I looked up, and just a few feet away, standing by a caron the opposite side of the concrete island, Joe Thayer held up a hand in greeting. He wore a yellow polo shirt tucked into madras shorts, and he looked characteristically handsome, but he also looked like he had recently lost weight he hadn’t needed to lose: His cheekbones were more pronounced, and though he was well over six feet, there was a scrawniness to his shoulders. Not that I looked so hot myself—as my grandmother had observed, I had on my mother’s “frumpy” blouse. Plus, because I hadn’t brought the mousse that I used, my hair was a bit frizzy. I still was a good fifteen minutes from Maronee, and I hadn’t expected to run into anybody I knew.
“Joe, how are you?” I glanced toward his car and, thinking I saw his son, said, “And is that Ben in the—Oh my goodness, that’s Pancake!” Pancake was a black Lab famous in Halcyon for being able to stand on her hind legs and slow-dance with seventy-two-year-old Walt Thayer, Joe’s father; this routine had never seemed entirely consensual
